Transparency in contests. The same people win contest after contest. Typically for Diary of the Month it is 7-8 "insiders" with two randoms. "Insiders" are folks who comment on the other insiders diaries, kissing each others ass over their scrubby little grows, and carpet bomb others diaries with phony praise. Most of their grows are not "top representatives of genetics". Just because they take fancy pics with lots of product placement, doesn't make them top representatives of genetics either. Also many of these 'winners' have incomplete stats, and incomplete descriptions of the 'techniques'. Many will have missing weeks. ANY missing stats or weeks should be automatic disqualification. Also, the randomly picked winners, usually 2 or 3 per month, have serious flaws with their grows as well. One month a 10th place was awarded to a guy with a half assed diary, a 20g plant, and it was infested with thrips at harvest! How the heck does that get judged as having "exquisite grow technique". The plant was garbage, the diary was garbage, yet was picks as a winner of a contests that states the winners are selected by this criteria: "Top representatives of genetics, best journals and performers of exquisite grow techniques". Of all the winners month after month only one or two may actually meet this standard. I look at most of the diaries every month in the contest for diary of the month and am constantly amazed at what ends up picked as the winners. Underdeveloped, tortured and abused plants are being recognized as 'winners'. Bro-gro science is heralded by the majority on here. I guess since the world is upside down, and crap is king, this makes sense.
Another example of this is when a diary is awarded yet has zero stats (wet weight, dry weight etc) or the stats are purely bogus such as 10th place for the contest 12/20. 2,000 grams is the total dry weight of one plant. obviously a typo, but how can it win in a contest with dozens of others with accurately entered statistics. its obviously flawed and should not be rewarded.
More examples are when the review is only one sentence long and each week only has short meaningless single sentences entered...how can they be considered as a best journal?
If GD doesn't have the manpower or interest in having actual quality plants and diaries rewarded, then just be honest and say that 6-8 winners are chosen if they are well known to the most "popular" growers on the sight and that 2-3 will be chosen at random. I doubt this will be very popular, so just pick the winners at random and state that as the criteria for the contest.
"Top representatives of genetics, best journals and performers of exquisite grow techniques" as the stated criteria for winners is easily seen as a lie when applied to most of the winners.
I would also suggest making the use of spam bots impossible. If not remove the monikers of Newbie, apprentice, master etc. It is meaningless. Some of the worst growers on this site are Grand Masters and Gurus. Its based on the number of "likes" they receive and promotes the practice of using spam bots or manually carpet bombing others diaries with meaningless praise to garner more "likes".
The site is a great platform for showing off and documenting your grow. It blows all other old style forum type grow sites away. It helps me improve my plants and ads to my knowledge from those few that actually are good at what they are doing (sadly there are very few true green thumb horticulturalists active on this site). Sure there are lots of people new to growing, but rewarding crap doesn't improve cannabis growing techniques, its retarding it. Awarding diaries that don't meet one or all of the stated criteria is unfair to those that do.
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